Venice, Italy

One of the prettiest places we visited during the summer of 2011 was Venice, Italy. Truly, I enjoyed Venice. We took a tour of the city, and then we had "free time" to venture out into the city in our groups. At one point, I remember sitting at a table eating an Italian sandwich thinking, "I'm in Venice, Italy!" Wow. It's impressive.

Venice is a city in northeast Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It's also known for Murano glass. There are no vehicles in Venice; that's an interesting thing to see in itself!

Venice is also known at the "City of Water", "City of Masks", "City of Bridges", "The Floating City", and "City of Canals". It's also been described in the New York Times as "undoubtedly the most beautiful city built by man".

The city stretches across 117 small islands in the marshy Venetian Lagoon along the Adriatic Sea. It was a major maritime power during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and a staging area for the Crusades, as well as a very important center of commerce and are in the 13th century up to the end of the 17th century. This made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history.